Sunday, October 28, 2012

The career record of Anibal Sanchez is 48-51, but the contract he signs in the weeks ahead could be worth more than a million bucks for each of those victories because the timing of Sanchez’s free agency couldn’t be better. He’s been pitching well of late; he’s on the World Series stage; he’s 28; and—best of all for him—the marketplace is expected to be flush with the cash of free-spending teams.

Sanchez could get anywhere from $30 million to $60 million as a free agent, some agents and executives predict, and Kyle Lohse could get a deal in the $77.5 million range, as C.J. Wilson did last winter.

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Kyle Lohse could get a deal in the $77.5 million range, as C.J. Wilson did last winter.

My first instinct was that this is nuts. Then I paused and remembered that Wilson had only been starting for two years, and that Lohse had a very good season this year, so I went and compared them... and now, I still think it's nuts.

There was an article yesterday in the Seattle Times about Mariners' pitching prospect James Paxton, and one focus in the article was about the Kansas City Royals scouts watching him in the Arizona Fall League.

But sprinkled in the seats around them, unremarkable to all but the most-seasoned baseball-watchers, was a plethora of scouts from the Kansas City Royals. They nodded their heads as Paxton struck out the side in the first inning, then fanned two more batters in a three-frame debut that saw him allow just a walk and a bloop single.

The Royals are in need of pitching, while the Mariners could use one of the bats — Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, to name two — that Kansas City seems to have a surplus of. And so, as the pitcher who is perhaps the most big-league ready of any of Seattle's so-called "Big Three" minor-leaguers goes about blowing away all comers, it isn't just the Mariners taking notes.

Do the Royals really have hitting to trade? They have 2-3 good hitters in Butler, Gordon and maybe Perez. I know they have Myers in the minors but he's not blocked by any of those three guys. Maybe one day Hosmer and Moose Tacos will start hitting but that day is not here yet.

And wasn't it just a year ago (or was it two years now) when everybody was raving about the Royals' minor-league pitchers?

Which isn't to say there wouldn't be a good trade here. Taking money, years, and defensive futility into account, a trade of Butler for Paxton might make all the sense in the world.

Of course Lohse also pitched 200 terrible innings in the 2 years before that.

He's a standard to above-average BIP pitcher (enjoying a nice boost from the jump in K rates). His walk rate of the last two years has been excellent and will be one of the keys to his continued success. But those two years are very much a product of a 270 BABIP over those years such that he's giving up 1-1.5 fewer hits per 9 than his career. The primary difference between Lohse and Westbrook the last two years has been 45 points of BABIP.

But I agree. Lohse is a perfectly good BABIP pitcher. He's also 33 and that's a pretty common time for this type of pitcher, or any type of pitcher, to start falling apart. If you can get him on a 3/$30 deal that might be fine. But the author is suggesting 5/$77 for Lohse and I want no part of that.

Of those 3, Lohse is the one I want least, especially at 5 years. You never know, his peripherals 2011-12, including BABIP, are essentially the same as Tim Hudson's ... and Hudson has a career 282 BABIP so we can't dismiss it in Hudson's case. So it could be that Lohse has found his inner Hudson and every team would love to have Hudson's 34-36 seasons. They're similar to Lowe who was very good at 34-35 then fell apart. But it's hard for me to see why a team would rather take a chance on Lohse than on Sanchez or Jackson (who was briefly mentioned in the actual article).

There was an article yesterday in the Seattle Times about Mariners' pitching prospect James Paxton, and one focus in the article was about the Kansas City Royals scouts watching him in the Arizona Fall League.

"But sprinkled in the seats around them, unremarkable to all but the most-seasoned baseball-watchers, was a plethora of scouts from the Kansas City Royals. They nodded their heads as Paxton struck out the side in the first inning, then fanned two more batters in a three-frame debut that saw him allow just a walk and a bloop single.

The Royals are in need of pitching, while the Mariners could use one of the bats — Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, to name two — that Kansas City seems to have a surplus of. And so, as the pitcher who is perhaps the most big-league ready of any of Seattle's so-called "Big Three" minor-leaguers goes about blowing away all comers, it isn't just the Mariners taking notes."

Wonder of wonders, there were scouts at an AFL game!

You know what? There are only three AFL games per day. EVERY team scouts EVERY game. And you know what else? Based on the description of this game and looking at the play by play of every game in which Paxton has pitched, the game referenced occurred on October 9. Guess who Paxton's Peoria team played that day: The Surprise Saguaros, whose roster contains minor leaguers belonging to....the Royals.

So there were Royals scouts at a game being played by members of the Royals organization. Gee, scouts looking at members of their own organization only happens like ALWAYS. And they would certainly take note of the other players as well while they are there.

Me too, it seems every deal made (except maybe the Prince Fielder deal, which I liked and everyone else hates) is more than I would spend if I'm the owner. What that really means is that I need to re-examine my definition of going rate and value, instead of blaming it on poor GM skills.

5years at 77 mil does seem like an insanely high number to give someone like (Cy Young candidate) Kyle Lohse. But at the same time, he's pretty much guaranteed to give you 200 innings each year(as much as anyone could be guaranteed to do that) and will probably provide average performance.

I guess the real barometer is whether you could trade this contract halfway through. Would you trade anything for a 35 year old Kyle Lohse who's still owed 3/36?

That is a poor barometer in my opinion. Baseball contracts are about the first half of the contract, not the entire contract, teams seem more than willing to punt on the back end of the contract for the front end certainty. Nobody (including the Angels) thought that Pujols was going to provide any baseball value on the last two years of his contract. Same with pretty much any contract handed to an over 30 year old player that is longer than 4 years.

A few years ago we were having debates about talent distribution and pay scale, and how come fangraphs system uses a linear scale for player values, when talent is more than likely, pyramid shape, and the answer is that teams pay linearly on a per year basis, but that the higher value get longer contracts, where the team assumes a lost in value towards the end, if you set it up as a strict one year equals value this year.

Baseball contracts are about the first half of the contract, not the entire contract, teams seem more than willing to punt on the back end of the contract for the front end certainty.

For star players, maybe. For the Kyle Lohses of the world, why is winning the right to pay him $12 million next year worth the commitment to paying him another $12 million when he's 38? If what you need to buy is 5 years of league average pitching, what do you care whether you get it from one pitcher or five?

A few years ago we were having debates about talent distribution and pay scale, and how come fangraphs system uses a linear scale for player values, when talent is more than likely, pyramid shape, and the answer is that teams pay linearly on a per year basis, but that the higher value get longer contracts, where the team assumes a lost in value towards the end, if you set it up as a strict one year equals value this year.

Do you happen to have a link to an article or something that goes into more depth on this at hand? I've always been intrigued/bothered by that very question and this seems to be a really useful explanation/answer.

Do you happen to have a link to an article or something that goes into more depth on this at hand? I've always been intrigued/bothered by that very question and this seems to be a really useful explanation/answer.

Nope, sorry, it was several different discussions on this board, I'm fairly certain a couple of articles from hardball talk and fangraphs prompted the discussion but I don't remember what they were about.

For star players, maybe. For the Kyle Lohses of the world, why is winning the right to pay him $12 million next year worth the commitment to paying him another $12 million when he's 38? If what you need to buy is 5 years of league average pitching, what do you care whether you get it from one pitcher or five?

Let's start with, I think that there is no way Kyle gets a five year guaranteed contract, so he is probably a poor example, he's more than likely going to get a 4 year contract with a 5th year guaranteed based upon innings pitched in his third and fourth year. (or a mutual option)

But, if you want to buy a 3 war pitcher, you will have to pay around 15mil for it, and if you are paying a 15mil per contract, you are going to have to give out a minimum of three years. That isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's a general rule that usually is true.